Global Louisville Action Plan

Unveiled in December 2016, the Global Louisville Action plan is a collaborative effort between the Mayor’s Office, Greater Louisville Inc., the metro chamber of commerce, and hundreds of community members, and outlines key strategies to attract, retain and grow our foreign-born population and workforce by providing an overview of the region’s foreign-born population and a set of action steps to increase the number of immigrants here and their capacity to thrive.

Three areas of focus identified in the plan include:

Integrate: Provide equitable and efficient access to services and resources so that immigrants can more readily use pathways to education and career development to realize their full potential, including connecting city services and refugee/ immigrant service agencies, helping skilled workers attain credential verification, and supporting the development of foreign-born business associations and mentorship programs.

Empower: Assist immigrants in engaging with the Louisville community for the long-term and increase their participation levels in all aspects of city life, including increasing foreign-born home ownership rates, connecting foreign-born communities to local arts and cultural heritage organizations, and increasing financial literacy workshops and resources.

Attract: Develop and implement strategies to attract and retain skilled foreign-born workforce and entrepreneurs, including marketing Louisville to international media outlets, working with universities to increase attraction and retention of international students, and creating a task force to focus on attracting foreign-born entrepreneurs.

Current population growth projections put Louisville on track to almost double its 2015 foreign-born population by 2025. In order to meet growth goals, the Louisville region is looking to accelerate attraction of native and foreign-born migrants to the area by increasing annual growth of all inbound migration from 1 percent to 2 percent. By 2040, the foreign-born population in Louisville is expected to be 172,000, or 17.2 percent of the total population.

Click here to read and download the full Global Louisville Action Plan.